The market just for mobile content in Japan in 2012 was still bigger on feature phones (US$5 billion), but it contracted by 27% when compared to a year before.

That difference was overcompensated by the respective market on smartphones, which grew 4.6-fold year-on-year to reach US$3.8 billion:

What about games inside this mobile content market?

The size of the market forgaming on feature phones in Japan in 2012 reached around US$2.4 billion: roughly US$2 billion for social games, and another US$410 million for mobile games (titles that are not distributed through social gaming networks like GREE or Mobage).

Observe how both sub-segments shrank year-on-year on feature phones:

On the smartphone side, the gaming segment reached US$2.7 billion for all game-related content (here, the MCF doesn’t make a special distinction).

This segment on smartphones grew 5.4-fold year-on-year:

As a summary, the Japanese market for mobile gaming in 2012 reached US$5.1 billion overall, according to the MCF: US$2.4 billion on feature phones, and US$2.7 billion on smartphones.

About Serkan TotoI am the CEO & Founder of Kantan Games, Inc., a Tokyo-based game industry consultancy focused on the Japanese market.
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